The Jazz Kid (18 page)

How long would it be before I could do that? Tommy figured I was pretty near
ready
to branch out on my own. The problem was that I still looked like a kid. It worked against me, Tommy said. Jazz musicians were mostly pretty young as it was—eighteen, twenty, twenty-three. They didn't want to make matters worse by bringing a real kid up on the stand. But I was growing fast. I figured in a year I'd look a good deal older, and if I dressed up a bit, and maybe grew a mustache, if I could, I'd get away with it.

I decided to set my sights on that: a year to the day after I ran away I'd walk back in there togged out like a swell, with my own job behind me and a few bucks in my pocket. In the meantime I'd keep myself as busy as I could and hope that the homesickness would wear off.

I scratched my way through a week or so like this, getting a little more used to it. Then one afternoon when I was mopping the floor the door opened, and in came Herbie Aronowitz. It made me jump to see him. He stood there by the door in his blue suit, one hand on the doorjamb. “Where's Silva?” he said.

“He doesn't usually come in until later,” I said. It made me plenty nervous to see him.

“I didn't ask that. I asked where he was.”

“I don't know,” I said. “He never tells me where he's going. I'm just the porter here. I don't even know where he lives.” Herbie didn't seem to recognize me.

He didn't say anything for a minute, just stood there looking around. “Do pretty good business here?” he said finally.

“Sometimes good. Sometimes it's pretty quiet.”

He looked around some more, taking everything in. Then he said, “You tell Silva that Herbie was looking for him.” He gave me a hard look. “You got me?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Tell him Herb wants to see him.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to go. Then he turned back and stared at me some more. “Don't I know you from somewhere?”

I got hot and scratched my head. “Maybe you saw me here before.”

He
shook his head. “Ain't you the plumber's kid? Frank Horvath's kid?”

“Naw,” I said, trying to look at him straight on. “My pa died a long time ago. He worked in the stockyards.”

He went on looking at me. “You sure you ain't Frank Horvath's kid? The kid that came around once looking for a wrench that wasn't there?”

“I wished I was,” I said. “I wished I was somebody's kid instead of sleeping in that back room next to the coal bin.”

“Well, you look like him.” He started to go out, and then turned back once more. “Make sure you give Silva the message. Herbie wants to see him.”

I had sense enough to wait until I caught Mr. Silva alone before I gave him the message. He took his tan fedora off, held it by the brim with both hands, and stood there frowning at it, as if there was an answer to some question in it. “That all Herb said? He wants to see me? He didn't say what it was about?”

“That's all. Just that he wants to see you.”

Mr. Silva didn't say anything, but went on staring into the hat. Then he remembered I was standing there. “Yeah, I know what it was. It ain't nothing important.” He stared into the hat some more, and then he remembered me again. “You go on back to work,” he said.

I didn't know what it was about and I didn't want to know. It was Mr. Silva's problem. I was much more worried that Herb would run into Pa and drop it to him that he'd seen a kid that looked like me. It didn't seem likely that it would come up. I wasn't of any importance to Herbie Aronowitz; why would he bother to keep me in mind?

On the other side of it, Pa
would
bother to keep me in mind. He'd have a pretty good idea that I was liable to be hanging around jazz joints. If he ran into Herbie he might ask him to keep an eye out for me, and of course Herbie would put two and two together. Maybe I ought to get out of there. Maybe I ought to find a job portering somewhere else.

I hated to do that. For one thing, where would I sleep until I found a new joint? For another, it was mighty comforting to see Tommy Hurd all the time. He was familiar
to
me. I decided to take a chance on it. Probably Herb had forgotten all about me the minute he walked out of the place.

Two
DAYS LATER
something happened that made me glad I was busing tables in Silva's club. Tommy's band was on the stand, playing, I was clearing up after a party that had just gone out, when in came about six people. At least two of them were musicians, for they were carrying instrument cases. They'd probably just got off their own jobs and were going around to the after-hours joints to hear what was going on, and maybe sit in. The others looked like the type of jazz fan that followed their favorite musicians around all night, just to be part of things.

They stood there waiting for me to finish clearing the table. One of them, a kind of big, athletic-looking fella, had a cornet case. His bow tie was undone, his collar unbuttoned. I finished swabbing off the table and went into the kitchen with the dirty ashtray. When I came back they were sitting at the table. The cornet player had his feet up on a chair, and was leaning back, listening to the band. I came over with the clean ashtray. Just then Tommy took the band out with a two-bar tag. He hopped off the bandstand and trotted over to the table. “Bix,” he said. “It's swell to see you. Come on up and play.”

It was Bix Beiderbecke. I stood there polishing up the ashtray with my apron. Bix shook his head. “Naw, you guys are too good for me.”

The fans around the table laughed. “Come on, Bix,” Tommy said.

“Well, I might be encouraged if I had a drink.” They all laughed again, even though it wasn't really funny. I went on polishing the ashtray.

“Kid, get Bix a drink.” I went into the kitchen and fixed the drink. By the time I got back Bix was up on the bandstand, flapping the valves of his cornet. I brought the drink over, handed it to him, and then stepped over to the side of the bandstand where I wouldn't miss anything. The busing could wait.

“What do you want to do, Bix?”

He shrugged, took a swallow of whiskey, and set the glass down by his feet.
“
China Boy?”

Tommy nodded and stomped the band off. He stood back a little letting Bix take the lead and filling in behind. And oh my, wasn't it something? It was like Tommy had said: Bix had a way of playing like nobody else, a style that was all his own. He wasn't running all over the horn the way Louie did, high F's all over the place. He kept to the middle, banging out the notes exactly so, sharp and precise, with a clean, warm sound. I could see right away what his idea of improvising was—sew together little ideas so that you could see the sense of them as they came along one after another. He wasn't just tossing notes out there to fit the chord changes, the way a lot of guys did. The ideas linked up, one after the other, into a long chain that was solid as iron. It was different from Louie's way of playing: where Louie was always telling a big story of some kind, Bix was making little poems. You could almost hear the rhymes.

It took my breath away. I stood there hardly able to move through three numbers, until I saw Mr. Silva by the kitchen door giving me a look, and went back to busing again. But I knew I'd have to find a way of hearing Bix again, for in twenty minutes he'd showed me a whole lot about jazz I never understood before.

I talked with Tommy about it later. “Do you think he's better than Louie Armstrong?” Calvin had told us his full name.

Tommy shrugged. “Who's to say what better is? They got different styles.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you know what I mean.”

“Some people think Bix is tops, some people would take Louie. Oliver ain't too bad, either. What about Phil Napoleon with the Memphis Five bunch?

“What about Mares? You got a whole lot to choose from.”

“Tommy, don't you think that Bix has a prettier sound than Louie? Maybe I ought to try to get that sound.”

He gave me a look. “Kid, that ain't the point. It's not how to get Bix or Louie into it. The point is how to get yourself into it, how to make it sound like you. Point is, how do
you
want it to sound? First you got to figure out what
you
want to play, or you can't do nothing.”

It
all gave me an awful lot to think about. Tommy was right. I could see that you had to get a piece of yourself into the music. But how did you do that? Who was I anyway? I was sitting in the furnace room one afternoon fooling around with the cornet, just trying this and that to see if I was getting myself into it, when suddenly the door opened and Herbie Aronowitz was standing there. His overcoat was unbuttoned, and I could see his usual blue suit, no tie.

I dropped the cornet onto the cot and jumped up. “Mr. Silva isn't here.”

He stared at me for a minute. “No, I was looking for you, Paulie.”

“Paulie? My name is Johnny—”

He laughed. “Don't hand me none of that, Paulie. I thought it was you all along.”

I was stuck. “How'd you know?”

“From your pa. He came around asking me if you turned up at any of my clubs. He figured you was likely to be tagging around after Tommy Hurd.”

“Oh.” I felt sick. “Did you tell Pa where I was?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet, anyways. I might and I might not.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. Would he do anything to me for lying to him?

He looked at me for a while, not blinking. “When does Silva usually come in?”

I was plenty scared, and didn't dare lie to him.

“Usually around ten, to unlock the liquor. The waiters come in at eleven to set up. The band starts at midnight.”

“Where's Silva usually at?”

“By the door, keeping an eye on who's coming in,” I said. I wished I didn't have to tell him all this stuff, but I was too scared not to.

“He got someone with him?”

I shook my head. “One of the waiters is pretty big. He can handle anyone who makes trouble.”

“What time he close up?”

“Depends. Usually the place is empty by six and we close, but you can't be
sure.”

He reached into his trousers pocket, pulled out a fat roll of bills, and unrolled a ten. “Here,” he said. “Get yourself a pair of long pants. I don't want nobody in knee pants working for me.” Then he was gone.

I sat down on the cot, feeling mighty shaky. The last thing I ever wanted was to get involved with gangsters. How could I get out of it? What was I going to tell Angelo Silva? Had he done something to Herb? Were they taking over his joint? I remember what Calvin Wilson had said about Herbie Aronowitz treading on people's toes. Maybe that was the whole thing—they wanted to take over the Charleston. But maybe it was something worse.

I lay down on the cot and stared at the ceiling. What a mess I was getting myself into. Living all by myself in a furnace room next to a coal bin, coffee and pie for breakfast, chop suey every night for supper. Giving myself a bath as best I could out of the sink in the kitchen. No one to talk to all day long. I'd given everything up for jazz, and where had it got me? Mixed up with the gangsters. Running away from Ma and Pa was one thing; running away from the gangsters would be a lot harder, for they were everywhere in Chicago, and you never even knew who they were.

I had to talk to Tommy. He came in a few minutes late and had to go right on the stand; and during the first break a party of good tippers wanted him to have a drink with them, so it wasn't until the second break that I could get him outside for a few minutes. “Let's walk down to the corner,” I said.

“What's going on, kid?”

“I'll tell you in a minute,” I said. I waited until we were a half a block away from the club. “Herb Aronowitz came around today. They're after Silva.”

Tommy
stopped walking and looked at me. “What'd Herbie say?”

“Nothing straight out. He just wanted to know what time Silva came in, where he was during the night, when he closed the place.”

Tommy took a look up and down the street. It was pretty quiet, just a couple of people out. “Come on, let's walk,” he said. After a bit he said, “It doesn't sound good, does it.”

“What should I do?”

“Do? Don't do nothing, kid. Stay out of it.”

“Don't I have to tell Silva?” I said. “Don't I have to warn him?”

“You don't have to do nothing of the kind, kid. What you got to do is stay clear of the whole thing. The gangsters own Chi, lock, stock, and barrel. You get in wrong with them, you might as well leave town. Musicians don't mean nothing to them. Just as soon shoot one as shoot a duck. You get in trouble with the gangs you might as well chuck your cornet in the river.”

“What do you think they'll do to Silva?”

Tommy shrugged. “Who knows. Push him around a little, maybe. Maybe worse. It ain't any of our business.”